Mansa Moussa: Pilgrimage of Gold
In 1312 Mansa
Moussa, the most legendary of the Malian kings, came to
the throne. Mansa Moussa was a devout Muslim who built magnificent
mosques
throughout his empire in order to spread the influences of Islam.
During his reign, Timbuktu became one of the major cultural centers
of not only Africa but of the entire Islamic world.

When Mansa Moussa came to power, the Mali Empire already had firm
control of the trade routes to the southern lands of gold and
the northern lands of salt. Under Moussa's reign, the gold-salt
trade across the Sahara came to focus ever more closely on Timbuktu.
The city's wealth, like that of many towns involved in the trans-Saharan
trade route, was based largely on the trade of gold, salt, ivory,
kola nuts, and slaves.

Mansa Moussa expanded Mali's influence across Africa by bringing
more lands under the empire's control, including the city of Timbuktu,
and by enclosing a large portion of the western Sudan within a
single system of trade and law. This was a huge political feat
that made Moussa one of the greatest statesmen in the history
of Africa. Under Moussa's patronage, the city of Timbuktu grew
in wealth and prestige, and became a meeting place of the finest
poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and the Middle East.

Mansa
Moussa brought the Mali Empire to the attention of the rest of
the Muslim world with his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.
He arrived in Cairo
at the head of a huge caravan,
which included 60,000 people and 80 camels carrying more than
two tons of gold to be distributed among the poor. Of the 12,000
servants who accompanied the caravan, 500 carried staffs of pure
gold. Moussa spent lavishly in Egypt, giving away so many gold
gifts—and making gold so plentiful—that its value fell
in Cairo and did not recover for a number of years!

In Cairo, the Sultan of Egypt received Moussa with great respect,
as a fellow Muslim. The splendor of his caravan caused a sensation
and brought Mansa Moussa and the Mali Empire fame throughout the
Arab world. Mali had become so famous by the fourteenth century
that it began to draw the attention of European mapmakers. In
one map, produced in 1375, Moussa is shown seated on a throne
in the center of West Africa, holding a nugget of gold in his
right hand.

After
visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina on his pilgrimage,
Moussa set out to build great mosques, vast libraries, and madrasas
(Islamic universities) throughout his kingdom. Many Arab scholars,
including the poet and architect, Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli,
who helped turn Timbuktu into a famous city of Islamic scholarship,
returned with him.

Moussa had always encouraged the development of learning and the
expansion of Islam. In the early years of his reign, Moussa had
sent Sudanese
scholars to study at Moroccan universities. By the end of his
reign, Sudanese scholars were setting up their own centers of
learning in Timbuktu.

He commissioned Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim-es-Saheli to construct his royal
palace and a great mosque, the Djingareyber Mosque, at Timbuktu.
Still standing today, the Djingareyber Mosque consists of nine
rows of square pillars and provides prayer space for 2,000 people.
Es-Saheli introduced the use of burnt brick and mud as a building
material to this region. The Djingareyber's mud construction established
a 660-year-old tradition that still persists: each year before
the torrential rains fall in the summer, Timbuktu's residents
replaster the mosque's high walls and flat roof with mud. The
Djingareyber Mosque immediately became the central mosque of the
city, and it dominates Timbuktu to this day.

During Moussa's reign Timbuktu thrived as a commercial center
and flourished into a hub of Islamic learning. Even after the
Mali Empire lost control over the region in the fifteenth century,
Timbuktu remained the major Islamic center of sub-Saharan Africa.

Another article about him with different information not mentioned above.

MANSA MUSA

Mansa Musa was an important Malian king from 1312 to 1337 expanding the
Mali influence over the Niger city-states of Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenne.
Mansa Musa (Mansa meaning emperor or sultan and Musa meaning Moses),
the grandson of one of Sundiata’s sisters, is often referred to as "The
Black Moses" (Jeffries & Moss 1997). Timbuktu became one of the
major cultural centers not just of Africa but of the world. Vast
libraries, madrasas (Islamic universities) and magnificent mosques were
built. Timbuktu became a meeting place of poets, scholars and artists
of Africa and the Middle East. Even after Mali declined, Timbuktu
remained the major Islamic center of sub-Saharan Africa (Hooker 1996).
Mansa Musa maintained a huge army that kept peace and policed the trade
routes. His armies pushed the borders of Mali from the Atlantic coast
in the west beyond the cities of Timbuktu and Gao in the east -- and
from the salt mines of Taghaza in the north to the gold mines of Wangar
in the south (Jeffries & Moss 1997).

By the fourteenth century, Muslim traders were established in the town
of Djenne, located in the inland delta of the Niger. The most
impressive monument of intercultural borrowing is the Friday Mosque at
Djenne. There, salt from the Sahara, goods from northern Africa and
fine silks were exchanged for gold, slaves and ivory. The monumental
mosque was constructed around 1320 (the present building was
reconstructed on the foundation of the original mosque in 1907). The
rectangular, flat roofed building had walls supported by plaster-like
buttresses topped by finials. The massive rectangular towers reflect
the Islamic model while the building materials echo an older Mande
architectural style. The toron (horns) projections from the walls are a
feature of local architecture serving as scaffolding when the facade is
periodically replastered with clay. The African societies shaped and
molded the religion with traditional beliefs, values and sensibilities,
as well (Peter Mark, Africa, 1996, p. 26).

The Islamization of the Malian Court, in the late thirteenth century,
is recorded both in oral traditions of the Mande people and written
accounts by Arab historians and travelers. Ibn Khaldun described the
Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) of Mansa Musa in 1324. On his return from
the holy city, Mansa was accompanied be an Andulisian poet and
architect, al-Tuwayjin who constructed a royal palace (Mark, Africa,
p.16).

In 1352, the geographer Ibn Battuta spent a month at the court of the
Mansa. He described a society where Islamic practice was integrated
with local religious rituals and gave accounts of fine figurative
sculpture. Many of these terra-cotta figures marked with Islamic
symbols have been found recently near Djenne--and for the most part,
have been excavated illegally (Decker 1990, p.114). During Battuta's
visit to Nyani (in modern Bambara territory) he was witness to masked
dancers:

"On feast days...the poets come in. Each of them is inside a figure
resembling a thrush, made of feathers, and provided with a wooden head
with a red beak, to look like a thrush’s head. They stand in front of
the Sultan in this ridiculous make-up and recite their poems. Their
poems exhort the King to recall the good deeds of his predecessors, and
imitate them so that the memory of his good deeds will outlive him. I
was told that this practice is a very old custom amongst them, prior to
the introduction of Islam, and that they have kept it up." (Willet
1971, p. 93)

Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.

"So Abubakar equipped 200 ships
filled with men and the same number equipped with gold, water, and
provisions, enough to last them for years…they departed and a long
time passed before anyone came back. Then one ship returned and we
asked the captain what news they brought.

He said, 'Yes, Oh Sultan, we travelled for a long time until there appeared
in the open sea a river with a powerful current…the other ships went
on ahead, but when they reached that place, they did not return and
no more was seen of them…As for me, I went about at once and did not
enter the river.'

The Sultan got ready 2,000 ships, 1,000 for himself and the men whom he
took with him, and 1,000 for water and provisions. He left me to deputise
for him and embarked on the Atlantic Ocean with his men. That was
the last we saw of him and all those who were with him.

And so, I became king in my own right."Mansa
Musa, talking
to Syrian scholar Al-Umari.

Illustration from
Mansa Musa copyright2001
by Leo andDiane Dillon
by permission from Harcourt

Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot create polls in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum

Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed herein contain positions and viewpoints that are not necessarily those of IslamiCity. This forum is offered to stimulate dialogue and discussion in our continuing mission of being an educational organization.
If there is any issue with any of the postings please email to icforum at islamicity.com or if you are a forum's member you can use the report button.